Chapter 1: 1 Tick Tick Tick

We are trapped, stuck in a hamster ball with our sun in the center. During the day we look up and thank the cage that keeps us safe and the sun that brings us life, during the night we feel camaraderie from the lights of civilization we can see on the other side of the world. I hate it, we always look up, never down. Below us are the monsters that threaten us, that keep us bound in this hamster ball.

Since the Drowning we have lost so much, technology, culture, history, pride. Like rats scurrying from a destroyed nest we retreated to the center of the world, The First Layer, where monsters seldom go. Where trees as tall as mountains cannot grow, where there is not enough food to feed the ravaging hunger of the beasts. Humans fear that wonderful palce, tell their children of the dangers that come from the Lower Layers.

I want to see those dangers, those wonders. I dream of a world where humans walk over the corpses of the monsters that keep us up at night. Where we do not hide in the First Layer, but where we break out of our hamster ball to bend every Layer to our will.

-First Emperor of the Coal Empire 96 ATD

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Tick tick tick ting

I drummed my fingers against my seat in the traincar’s compartment. Across from me was a boy around my age, he had bright blond hair and orange eyes, his skin tanned from many days in the sun. The common Solarian trait.

He fiddled with his bow tie nervously as he looked from outside the window to me.

“S-so Monty, you said you were going to the Rising Dreamers Academy right?” he finally said.

Tick tick tick ting

My eye twitched.

“Yes…”

“That’s super cool, and scary I guess. I hear they do crazy experiments on the students to give them their powers, so it’s best to be careful alright.”

Tick tick tick ting

“Ok, thanks,” I answered blandly.

“I’m going to the Sun State University in Zuva, have you been to Zuva before?”

Tick tick tick ting

“I grew up there until I turned seven, then I moved away,” I said, shuddering from trying to control my annoyance.

“Awesome, but I hear it’s dangerous for someone of your… heritage there. A lot of uh, discrimination for you p- your kind.”

He spoke as though I wasn’t human just like him. I was Empyrean, or sometimes referred to as a Duster. Empyreans had pale skin and gray, colorless eyes and I had the black hair that a lot of Empyreans shared. We were dispersed all throughout the Core Layer of our world due to the colonization and conquests of the Coal Empire.

At one point the Coal Empire ruled the entire Layer and even had cities down in the Second Layer, but after the constant rebellions and inner turmoil over fifty years ago brought down the Empire, Empyreans were no longer in control. So the people who had before been at the mercy of the Empire liked to assert dominance sometimes. Also known as bullying or racism.

I wasn’t bothered by that, it was before my time and I had no extreme ideologies that came with my heritage.

What bothered me at the moment was…

Tick tick tick ting

“Can I see your watch?” I asked.

The boy, I had forgotten his name, pulled his watch close to his body.

“N-no, sorry, my mother gave it to me as a going away present.”

“Shitty present then.”

“Excuse me?! That is extremely rude, I might not be as rich as someone going to become a Dreamer but that is still no reason to act in such a way.”

“I wasn’t accepted because of money,” though his family was much richer than this farmboy’s own no doubt. “And I didn’t call it shitty because it isn’t made of Sun Stone and gold, I called it shitty because it isn’t functioning properly. I want to fix it.”

“Why?” the boy said, still squinting at me as though I was going to rip it off him.

“Because the noise is annoying me and I can fix it.”

We stared at each other for several seconds.

“Or you can just fucking leave with the annoying noise, that is fine too,” I said.

He didn’t leave, keeping the annoying irregular ticks in the train compartment. I let out a shaky breath and pulled out a book on the Rising Dreamers Academy.

I had read it three times already, but it helped keep the itch from the watch away.

The title of the book read, “Rising Dreamers Academy. Everything you need to know to make your dreams a reality.”

Which made it seem like some shady back alley scam, but in reality the Academy was the only one of its kind in the Sun State. Outside of there you either needed to be lucky enough to catch a Dreamer's eye or be born as a Dreamer.

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According to the book, technically, anyone could become a Dreamer and utilize the powers that come with it, however it was more efficient and safe to only accept those who pass the nation wide test.

There were three ways to get accepted into Rising Dreamers Academy. One was a recommendation letter from an Alumni or someone of great respect, whatever that meant. Two was to pay an unreasonable amount of money to get your kid accepted. And three was to pass the test given to every thirteen year old kid. I had been one of the ones to pass the test.

It hadn’t been a typical test that you might have seen in normal schools, instead it had been a very long and complex personality test, including asking about opinions on politics, economics, morality, as well as personal history.

“H-hey, Monty, can you actually fix my watch?” the boy across from him asked.

I looked up, while mulling over the Academy I had forgotten about the other kid in the compartment.

Tick tick tick ting

My irritation returned along with the thought of ripping the watch off his wrist to fix it. However when I looked out the window I could see us closing in on the capital city of Zuva.

“I don’t have time anymore.”

“O-oh, well maybe we could meet up sometime in Zuva, we might be going to different schools but it’s still in the same city.”

Looking at him I wondered if he was genuinely interested in a friendship, but I instantly discarded that thought. I couldn’t remember the last time someone wanted to be my friend, or the first time for that matter. He also probably wasn’t doing it so I would fix his watch, he would have mentioned it earlier if he was.

So, he wanted to make a connection with a Dreamer. Maybe to brag, maybe for a future doorway or endeavor.

“No I don’t like you.”

He opened his mouth to retort but I cut him off.

“Don’t take it personally, I’m not good with people in general.”

By the look on his face, he took it personally. It should have made sense to both of us that it was a fruitless endeavor, at least in my mind it made sense. The chances of the other kid becoming anything noteworthy even with college was one in seven.

As for me, the book didn’t have a specific percentage for success, but I knew that chances of death from Rising Dreamers Academy, sixteen point three percent.

But those that did make it were set for life, sought after across the Layers for their services.

Once we made it to the train station I quickly departed. The glowing prismatic steam that came out the top of the trains left the smell of sugar and sunflowers, which wasn’t bad in low doses, but with so many Sun Stone engines in one place made the scent overwhelming.

I had been to this same station once before, when I was seven and my parents had shipped me off to live with my grandparents. Back then the surrounding buildings had been in the old Empyrean style, which most Solarian’s disdained due to the history. Now they had been demolished and large towering buildings had taken their place. The roads were now paved with asphalt instead of bricked, it was both amazing and a bit sad. I had liked the Empyrean architecture, at the same time though the pragmatic way the skyscrapers were built was pleasing as well.

There were also a lot more people, I felt like I was suffocating. Sweat, nicotine, and oil assaulted my nose. I was bounced off a man hurrying to get inside the train station and felt something yank on my suitcase.

Turning I saw a child no more than ten in ratty clothing trying to steal my suitcase from my fingers while I had been distracted. I kicked the kid in the shin and they limped away to look for other targets.

I didn’t remember the city being this crowded before, it was almost night time and still there were people crowding the station. Like with the other boy’s watch earlier the disorder began to grate on my nerves. Why were there not separate doorways for entering and exiting? Why were the signboards not to the side and hanging from above so people didn’t have to stop in the middle of the walkway to look for their trains time. The booths should be off to the side, enough so that the lines didn’t interfere with people who already had tickets, but not so much so that they took a while to get to or were difficult to find.

In my mind I imagined the layout of the train station, altering it so it was more efficient. Surely humans were meant to be organized, why else would we have classifications for so many things.

I realized I had been standing still for a few minutes, just outside the tide of people. Looking up I saw that the sun that sat in the center of our world was beginning to fade from yellow to orange, in only another hour and a half it would be shedding soft blue light from its moon phase.

Like the trains the lamps were now powered by Sun Stones, with mirrors on the buildings that would focus the light of the sun on it during the day to charge them up.

Cars rolled down the road, their exhausts filling the road with even more prismatic steam.

If I were a normal kid my parents would have come to pick me up, happy to see me for the first time in seven years. They would have made me come a few days early even so that I could catch up and we could spend time together.

But if I had been a normal kid my parents would have never sent me away to begin with.

I hailed a cab, it took a few tries. I do not know if the ones who overlooked me for others did so because I was young, because others looked wealthier, or because I was Empyrean.

Eventually though a cab did stop for me, the driver was Empyrean as well, giving me the nod that people seem to do when there is some connection or link between the two. I returned it, though I felt none of the Empyrean connection that this man seemed to.

“Rising Dreamers Academy please.”

I could see the connection that the man had felt snap, Dreamers were not ordinary. They were people who wove mystical spells and were capable of unimaginable feats.

Like anytime people dealt with the unknown, being a Dreamer came with stereotypes, rumors, and superstition, and with those came discrimination.

As the city that seemed to have tripled in size since I had last been there sped by I tapped the face of my watch in time with the ticks.

Tick tick tick tick

It was so much better when things worked how they were supposed to.

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Did you know that the heart of a shrimp is located in its head?

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